Leinster Exile wrote:Brian Cowan on RTE now defending the farce. I've been in work all day so I've missed all the fuss. In the words of a great orator "I'm confusted ted".
So Cowan tried to pull a fast one with fresh frontbench for the election and the greens said feck off ?
Gormless stated on the six one news, that the first he heard of the resignations was this morning. I heard about four of them last night, on the TV. O'Keeffe was the only fresh resignation this morning.
What was Gormley doing, as a so called leader of a party in government ? Or did Dan "the Nerd" Boyle have the night off ?
Leinster Exile wrote:Brian Cowan on RTE now defending the farce. I've been in work all day so I've missed all the fuss. In the words of a great orator "I'm confusted ted".
So Cowan tried to pull a fast one with fresh frontbench for the election and the greens said feck off ?
Gormless stated on the six one news, that the first he heard of the resignations was this morning. I heard about four of them last night, on the TV. O'Keeffe was the only fresh resignation this morning.
What was Gormley doing, as a so called leader of a party in government ? Or did Dan "the Nerd" Boyle have the night off ?
He has no power once the sun goes down, his solar panels won't work at night and he can't use his tv
Leinster Exile wrote:Brian Cowan on RTE now defending the farce. I've been in work all day so I've missed all the fuss. In the words of a great orator "I'm confusted ted".
So Cowan tried to pull a fast one with fresh frontbench for the election and the greens said feck off ?
Gormless stated on the six one news, that the first he heard of the resignations was this morning. I heard about four of them last night, on the TV. O'Keeffe was the only fresh resignation this morning.
What was Gormley doing, as a so called leader of a party in government ? Or did Dan "the Nerd" Boyle have the night off ?
He has no power once the sun goes down, his solar panels won't work at night and he can't use his tv
Reading about the complete shambles in the paper this morning and noticed this sentance in the IT:
The issue was raised again on Wednesday morning, when the two Government parties met for an hour and a half to talk about the climate change legislation
Dexter wrote:Reading about the complete shambles in the paper this morning and noticed this sentance in the IT:
The issue was raised again on Wednesday morning, when the two Government parties met for an hour and a half to talk about the climate change legislation
Priorities, eh?
In fairness it's not like any party is jumping up and down to deal with the most important and monstrous mistake made in modern Irish history. They might as well get some legislation passed. It's what politicians are actually meant to do.
Not hand over the entire country to the ECB to bail out foreign banks that fuelled a property bubble that destroyed our economy. They're not meant to do that.
tate wrote:so who, if anyone, has ruled out forming a coalition with SF?
what else would you have them doing dexter? This is the last chance the greens will ever have in gov.
I agree and wouldn't expect the Greens to have done anything different. It just annoys me. In the larger scheme of things we have 400k+ unemployed, the ERSI expect 60k to emigrate this year, (even higher than the annual outflow in the 80's I believe) mostly young people, the public health system is a shambles... etc.
I'm not sure Irelands non-existent contribution to climate change is really concerning most people in Ireland at the moment, if ever.
tate wrote:so who, if anyone, has ruled out forming a coalition with SF?
what else would you have them doing dexter? This is the last chance the greens will ever have in gov.
I agree and wouldn't expect the Greens to have done anything different. It just annoys me. In the larger scheme of things we have 400k+ unemployed, the ERSI expect 60k to emigrate this year, (even higher than the annual outflow in the 80's I believe) mostly young people, the public health system is a shambles... etc.
I'm not sure Irelands non-existent contribution to climate change is really concerning most people in Ireland at the moment, if ever.
The planet doesn't give a sh*t about Irelands climate change bill.
"My final expression of thanks is to the supporters of both Ireland and Leinster with whom I have shared some special days that I will never forget" - Shane Horgan
Can we now focus on the country and not this fukn soap opera called Fine Fail?
I think you'll find the exact opposite is the case. That's why he resigned. Now they are setting the agenda in the news again.
I think its the poxy media that set the agenda, sick of all this cr@p and it is cr@p. Its all petty trifling because they will be replaced. It was a completly un-nessecary witch hunt, they are heading towards the door anyway. FF are a shower of w&%kers but sure so are the rest of them for encouraging this shite because its all just one-upmanship coming from the oppo as usual.
No-one has put their head up to demand that this 2week FF navel gazing programme be cut short in an effort to actually hurry the finance bill through. No, no why would they attempt to distract the public from the governments self-destruction, when they only stand to gain from FF's demise? 2011 thus far has been a sickening charade from both govenment and the pretenders. There is no hope for a society that gratifies in regression!
The Green Party has decided to withdraw from the Government after “losing patience” with the lack of resolution to the ongoing saga of Fianna Fáil’s leadership. As a result, the date of the election is likely to be brought forward from March 11th.
It announced the decision in at a press conference in Dublin this afternoon in the same hotel where Brian Cowen stood down as leader of Fianna Fáil yesterday but opted to remain as Taoiseach.
Mr Gormley said Fianna Fáil’s leadership issue was too much of a distraction for the Government and meant an immediate election was necessary.
The two Green ministers - Mr Gormley, who held the environment portfolio, and Eamon Ryan, who had the communications, energy and natural resources brief - have tendered their resignations, meaning there are now just seven ministers remaining in the Cabinet, the Constitutional minimum.
Mr Gormley was speaking after the party met for a number of hours to discuss political events over the last week, culminating in Mr Cowen's resignation yesterday.
Mr Gormley said a resolution of Fianna Fáil’s leadership difficulties had not emerged. “Our patience has reached an end," he told the press conference. “Because of these continuing doubts, the lack of communication and the breakdown in trust, we have decided that we can no longer continue in Government.”
Mr Gormley said the party would support the Finance Bill -which gives effect to measures contained in the Budget - from the Opposition benches and he called on Fianna Fáil to make every effort to fast-track the legislation. He declined to answer questions about whether the party would support the Labour Party’s motion of no confidence, saying that the “issue doesn’t arise” because the Opposition was willing to stay the motion to bring forward the Finance Bill.
Mr Cowen said after today's announcement by the junior coalition partners that he would reassign the portfolios held by the two Green Ministers as soon as their resignations were accepted by the President. He also said that it would not be possible to deal with the Finance Bill within one week as the timescale was unrealistic. He said he would not be resigning as Taosieach and ruled out going directly to the Áras to seek the dissolution of the Dáil and call an immediate election.
Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan said he was hoping to convene a meeting of spokespeople from the Greens and the other Opposition parties in his department over the coming to discuss a timetable for passing the Finance Bill. He said it would be difficult to have the Bill passed by the end of next week but insisted there was consensus among all parties that it should be passed. "I will explain the difficulties and I will see how they can address the difficulties," he told RTE's Six One News. "I accept that we have to accelerate the timetable for the general election, there’s no question of trying to postpone the general election. But we do need to have a realistic timetable that would allow the Bill to be passed in an orderly way."
Fine Gael’s deputy finance spokesman Brian Hayes said his party has had contacts with the Greens in the past 24 hours over the Bill. "It is Fine Gael’s view, as it is the Greens view, that the Dáil can be dissolved next Friday and that the Finance Bill can pass all stages in both Houses of the Oireachas".
Labour’s Pat Rabbitte said his party as "not averse" to co-operating with Mr Lenihan on easing the passage of the Bill. However, he said Fianna Fáil must realise that the lifetime of this Government was over and his party it would not support the "farce" of it remaining in power. "What is going on here is an attempt by Fianna Fáil to protect the jobs of their own members and their own TDs."
Sinn Fein's Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin said the Bill should not be put before the Dáil and called for an immediate dissolution.
In his statement, Mr Gormley described the party’s period in Government as a time of rare privilege. “It would of course have been preferable if our time in Government had not coincided with the worst economic downturn in our nation’s history. It has meant having to take the most difficult decisions that any party could have faced.”
Relations between the Coalition parties were badly strained over the last week, culminating in a serious disagreement between Mr Cowen and Mr Gormley about the circumstances in which the Greens vetoed plans for the appointment of six new ministers and precipitated the calling of the election.
Instead of appointing new ministers, the Taoiseach was forced last Thursday to reassign the vacant ministerial posts to serving members of the Cabinet.
They probably did the right thing in the end, was turning into a bit of a circus lately.
I have to laugh at FG and Labour saying they will fast track the Finance bill if they call a snap election.... they are practically trying to bounce us into an election ASAP - they are afraid of their sh*t of FF regrouping with a new leader and maybe not losing as many seats as expected. IMO, March 11th is short enough lead in time to an election.. let them all sweat and have to debate the issues and present their policies. The interest in this election will be huge and a good opportunity to debate on the type of politics and politicians we want to run the country.
leinster80 wrote:They probably did the right thing in the end, was turning into a bit of a circus lately.
I have to laugh at FG and Labour saying they will fast track the Finance bill if they call a snap election.... they are practically trying to bounce us into an election ASAP - they are afraid of their sh*t of FF regrouping with a new leader and maybe not losing as many seats as expected. IMO, March 11th is short enough lead in time to an election.. let them all sweat and have to debate the issues and present their policies. The interest in this election will be huge and a good opportunity to debate on the type of politics and politicians we want to run the country.
Agree with you on that, I don't think people realise what Labour stand for, what are their policies etc how will they implement them etc. With the joke that is FF everybody has given FG and Labour an easy ride. Lets not rush in to an election till they are put under a bit of scrutiny. March 11 is time enough but I doubt they can hang on till then
'And striding away now! For Leinster, is Brian O'Driscoll! He's Running for the posts, he could be running for the Final here! We've got a quarter of the match to go but at the moment the colour is Blue!!' Myles Harrison; Croke Park; 2nd May 2009
